December 30 – England and Atletico Madrid defender Kieran Trippier has been given a 10-week worldwide ban and fined £70,000 after an English Football Association panel found he broke betting rules.
December 23 – Tigres UANL cemented Mexico’s domination of the Concacaf Champions League after rallying to defeat Los Angeles FC 2-1 in the tournament’s final, extending Liga MX’s winning streak in the competition to 15 years.
December 23 – Barcelona presidential candidate Jordi Farre says he plans to try and re-unite Lionel Messi and Neymar if he lands the job in succession to Josep Maria Bartomeu.
December 22 – Real Madrid president Florentino Perez (pictured) has once again provocatively called for the formation of a European Super League.
December 22 – Reports in the Ivory Coast suggest FIFA is preparing to make public its ruling on the electoral process for the presidency of the country’s football federation (FIF), a move that could have serious consequences for Jacques Anouma’s bid for control of African football.
December 22 – Borussia Mönchengladbach striker Marcus Thuram has been banned for five games for spitting in the face of a Hoffenheim opponent in the Bundesliga.
December 22 – The EFL has pushed its League Cup final back from February to April in the hope that more fans will be able to attend its Wembley showpiece event in London.
December 21 – French football is still counting the cost of the loss of the Mediapro broadcast deal that has plunged a raft of clubs, already hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, into further financial disarray.
December 21 – Tigres UANL and Los Angeles FC will close off Concacaf’s disrupted 2020 competition season with the final of 2020 Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League on Tuesday (December 22).
December 21 – With the debate over both concussion and dementia intensifying, the family of former England 1966 World Cup-winning midfielder Nobby Stiles say they have been told his brain was severely damaged by repeated heading of the ball.
December 18 – Conmebol has said that it will organise the women’s Copa America every two years from 2022 onwards. The organisation’s president Alejandro Dominguez has also proposed an intercontinental club championship for the women’s game.
December 18 – The 2021 men’s and women’s U-17 European Championships have been cancelled by UEFA due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
By Paul Nicholson
December 17 – Former Trinidad and Tobago FA president David John-Williams (pictured), the target of a vitriolic character assassination in local media and from the TTFA management that ousted him (before they were removed by FIFA), has issued a powerful statement and evidence rebutting accusations that he stole FIFA funds as “fabrication”.
December 16 – Spain’s LaLiga is hiving off its digital product into a new company which it has valued at €450 million and is now being touted to private equity investors.
December 17 – With coronavirus case spiking at just the wrong time in the US, Concacaf has nevertheless managed to complete its centralised quarter finals in Orlando with two Mexican, one Honduran and one US team lining up for Saturday’s semi-finals.